photo by: Shawn Valverde/Journal-World

Tents at homeless camps are pictured in North Lawrence behind Johnny’s Tavern on Monday, March 11, 2024.

A group of Lawrence businesses’ lawsuit against the City of Lawrence, which asks a Douglas County court to close a pair of homeless camps, is scheduled to go to trial at the beginning of 2025.

According to updated Douglas County case filings, the case will go to a jury trial in late January 2025. The first day will be Jan. 20, 2025, and the trial will resume from Jan. 28 to Jan. 31 of that month.

As the Journal-World has reported, the lawsuit is asking a judge to declare a city-sanctioned camp — Camp New Beginnings — located behind Johnny’s Tavern in North Lawrence and an unsanctioned camp behind the Amtrak depot in East Lawrence as public nuisances. Rick Renfro, a founder and owner of Johnny’s Tavern, and Johnny’s North Lawrence Inc. are among the 24 plaintiffs in the suit.

The suit doesn’t ask for any monetary damages from the city, but rather an injunction that would prohibit the city from expanding, maintaining, operating or allowing the “public nuisances.”

The city-supported site located immediately behind Johnny’s Tavern will be closed for good on Monday, as the Journal-World has reported. But the city has also announced plans to continue offering some services to people living at a larger unsanctioned camp located immediately next to Camp New Beginnings through April 16.

As for the Amtrak camp, it’s unclear if the city has any plans for the area. That camp is also located on city-owned property, which is also the site of a conservation easement held by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks that agreed in 1989 to protect the property as a winter nesting site for bald eagles.